Taipei, Here I come!

The lovely looking cloud welcomed me to Taipei

I woke up at around 4am on the 18th Oct, 2011 to catch my 7am flight to Taipei on Jetstar! Although excited about my trip, I still felt very sleepy and struggled to wake up for the trip. Thanks to my beloved partner for waking up even earlier to pick me up and send me to the airport, we managed to board the flight on time and are on our way to Taipei.

As you can see, here's the contrast of
my hardworking partner vs the sleepy head - me. :P

Of course, a playful photo of me & piggy.
Who's the piggy here?
*Pointing at each other*

After around 4 hours 50 mins of flight, we arrived at the Taoyuan Airport. Here's some photos of the beautiful side of the airport.

Even Toilet Walls are Beautiful

There are bathrooms available but you will need to
pay to use and there is actually time limit

Airport Toilets are full of instructions

They even provide hot and cold water dispenser

Lovely public lounge for those to rest during transit

I'd recommend that you exchange your country's currency to the Taiwan Dollar (TWD) at the Airport as that's the place with one of the best exchange rate in Taiwan. If you happened to arrive at the Tao Yuan Airport, try the Mega ICBC Bank (the 2nd money changer within the Transit area). There are actually many money changer within and outside the transit area. So don't worry about the queue, just visit the next one. In fact, after looking at the various exchange rates available in the airport, I found out that the 2nd money changer the Mega ICBC Bank offers the best rate. If you find the queue still very long, try out the other money changers within the transit area as the exchange rates there are slightly better.

To change the Taiwan dollar back to your own currency, you might want to try the money changer at your own country, who knows, you might make some money in the process. :) As the rates you get in Taiwan is really very good but not so when you change back.

After leaving the transit area, we took bus 1819 at about $125 per head to the Taipei Main Station. They had someone to help carry our luggage onto the luggage compartment of the bus, so I would say that their service is excellent.

Read more »

Taiwan - Dream Board

Finally, I've fulfilled the entire small little corner of my dream board, a visit to Taiwan to see my idol, Jacky Wu and the Queen's head before it fall off! 

My journey is about 8 days, covering some main areas of interest:

• 西门盯 (Xi Men Ding)
• 野柳 (Yeh Liu)
• 东区 (East Area)
• 九份 / 十分 (Jioufen / Shihfen)
• 信义区 (Xin Yi Area)
• 淡水 (Tamsui)
• 你猜 你猜 你猜猜猜 (Guess Guess Guess)
• 台北车站 (Taipei Main Station)

The Wonderful Guidebook that
Saved the Day!

I need time to process the photos, contents and upload them, so stay tuned! I'll also be covering on Taiwan Mobile Plan details and Easy Card details to help those who need such information then time round.

Read more »

University of Canberra - Jo's Graduation

After visiting so many places, we finally came to our final destination -- University of Canberra, the place where my best friend, Jo, graduates at. In fact, this is the main reason behind this particular trip! After all, we just wanted to go for a trip together and this is our main excuse. :P

Not forgetting to pose with the stairs

The university building

Canberra Campus

Thanks to the trip and the opportunity, we are caught red-handed taking lots of photos around the area during the graduation day and hence, a reporter asked to take a photo of us. That's how for the first time in my entire life, we're on the Canberra Times of the following day!

This marks the end of the trip and we are on our way back to Sydney all the way from Canberra. Due to the amount of fun we are having previously, I'm so tired that I didn't wake up to my alarm. In the end, we overslept but luckily, we still managed to get back to the airport in time for our flight back home.

Read more »

Katoomba Scenic Railway & Cableway

Had fun and enjoyed the view at the Katoomba Scenic Railway and Cableway. If visiting this place, don’t forget to bring your camera to capture the nice scenery along the way.

For me, I would prefer the Railway more than the Cableway experience as it’s a bit more exciting and fun!

The coal mine is those museum style area where we can to walk around the area to explore and take photos.

Find out more about the place at wiki: Katoomba Scenic World.

*Tip to avoid the crowd: Take the Cableway down and Railway up.

Read more »

Jenolan Caves

One of the nice sightseeing area is of course the Jenolan Caves. The interior had been fitted with nice lighting to enhance the architecture and structure of the Caves. As for me, a newbie to the area, I joined the Guided Tour which I enjoyed the experience of the guide explaining the structures and showing us around the area.

Of course, during the guided tour, you will get to see special lighting effects like the below where it gets to focus on different area of the cave with different colour effects. This is something you shouldn’t miss of course 

When planning your visit to the Jenolan Caves, do remember to check out the guided tours’ timetable! Knowing when the tours are will prevent wastage of time waiting for the next tour to start.

The next sightseeing venue I’ll be sharing is Katoomba Scenic Railway in the same Blue Mountains area.

Read more »

The Three Sisters – Blue Mountains

At the three sisters formation area, the wind is extremely big, at some of the photograph taking area, we felt that if we didn’t hold on to our caps, they might just get blown away! You’ll get to see the nice views of the area as you are looking down from close to the top of the mountain. Also, the formation that got the area it’s name, won’t be lasting long as they’d get eroded off completely one day. So catch it while it lasted!

The Three Sister at Blue Mountains
(image extracted from wiki)

The downside of the area was that other than mountains and scenic views, there’s almost nothing much in that place to visit other than some small souvenir shops.

Read more »

Featherdale Wildlife Park

Dropped by Featherdale Wildlife Park on our way up Blue Mountain as we happened to pass-by that place so we decided to take a look as well as take a break. Interestingly, we had our first time trials in feeding kangeroos with the container in the area. It was pretty scary initially to watch them eat off the biscuit cup from my hand but after a while, we managed to even take photo with them.

We also found some Koala bears in the trees and took photo with them as well. My comments on these Koalas is that they really got a scent that I didn’t quite like. Also, they aren’t very friendly and cooperative in the photography session, ignoring the cameras and enjoying their sleep. When we woke them one, I think one of them scratched my jacket lol..

Read more »

Our Stay at the Blue Mountains

After staying a few days at Sydney, we headed our way to the Blue Mountains for our next few days’ stay! As you can see the mountain range from far is really blue in color… But I heard from my friend that when she visited, the mountains is green. Probably due to it being winter that we had the chance to see a bluer mountain range view on our ride up the mountains.

At the Blue Mountains, there are various places that we’ve visited:

1. Featherdale Wildlife Park – Close up interaction with the Australian animals
2. The Three Sisters of Blue Mountains – Super windy place with scenic mountain top views
3. Jenolan Caves – Beautiful caves
4. Katoomba Scenic Railway & mining tramways – Enjoy the ride and explore the coal mine areas

Because of the cold weather during winter, we experienced the days of burning firewood at our chimney area to keep ourselves warmth. We were thinking that if it had been much warmer, perhaps we might get the chance to go swimming at the nearby lake.

That's the lake we almost wanted to swim at, if not for the cold winter

One of the most memorable experience is that we woke up in the morning, being able to see beautiful sunrise as well as kangaroos hanging around almost just in front of our lodging. Just that due to the dim lights, I couldn’t managed to capture a nice view of that. It’s such a pity for me..

Read more »